Under a blood red sky

She was back to almost entirely full strength after all that dream stuff. She'd really depleted herself during that and it had taken time to get herself back to normal. If nothing else she had a better understanding of what Harry felt like after one of his infamous fights. She just took it easy, slept when she felt like it and ate when she was hungry.

Murphy had gone out for a run so Molly curled up on the couch with a book she'd borrowed from Harry. She wanted to keep up her research and studies while she was recovering, but to be honest she wasn't getting too much studying done since her mind kept turning towards a certain tall young man with the most amazing dimples she'd ever seen.

It was a quiet night, so Murphy took the opportunity to go for a job. She was getting restless given the lack of action that had occurred over the past few weeks. Not that she wanted things to explode, but she knew they would at the worst possible moment. She was ready to close the book on both of her cases. It was extremely frustrating to know exactly what the culprit was and to be unable to find them-or find a way to kill them.

She caught sight of a flash of red in a tree and slowed her pace. She pulled out her gun, ready for anything, as she slowly approached the tree.

There was a bit of a sense of letdown as she recognized what the little bit of red was. It was a pair lace panties that...

Murphy moved a little closer. She didn't reach up to touch them, but she sure as hell recognized them. She'd bought them just before Hawaii and hadn't been able to find them anywhere after she'd gotten back. She had her suspicions about where they'd ended up, but that didn't exactly explain why they were now in a tree here.

Of course, it could be coincidence and could just be a pair belonging to someone else who shopped at Victoria's Secret, but Murphy didn't believe in coincidence.

Sam had smiled through Christmas and New Years, and to be honest, things had been mostly okay. Relatively speaking. He still had ups and downs, but most of his worries were for other people, more than himself. He'd owned his decision to go dumpster diving with Lucifer, and now he owned his post traumatic stress.  It could always be worse.

Tuesday, however, was still his least favorite day of the week, ever since the Mystery Spot with Loki, so he'd needed a little extra something at the end of the day. Just to unwind. Yes, he knew drinking himself to sleep was not the best idea, but having a drink and falling asleep to bad TV was okay. Right? Of course right. As long as he could catch a few hours uninterrupted, he knew things would look better in the morning.

Carr had finally had to admit defeat, and get a job. He'd gone to the bar Molly had suggested, and as luck would have it, they'd been short-staffed. He hadn't seen the blonde that Molly'd mentioned, and when he asked about her, no one had seen her. That...was a little worrying, but Carr wasn't of a mind to take on someone else's problems.

So he'd happily picked up her shifts, working behind the bar. He was half-bartender, half-bouncer, if and when needed. It wasn't often, but tempers were running high of late. Tonight, though, everything was quiet. Ish. Carr was busy drying glasses, stacking them at the back of the counter. He suppressed his wolf senses as best as he could while he was working - the inside of a bar could be a little overwhelming, otherwise. As a result, he heard more than smelt someone walk up to the bar.

"Be with you in a sec," he called out, stacking the last glass before turning, eyebrows raised questioningly. "What can I get you?"

Anita had contact the local chief of police, before ever coming to York. After working with vamps, wolves, and any number of law enforcement officers, it had just seemed like the right thing to do. But now she was hearing about cops committing suicide left and right, and she was surprised that Lieutenant Murphy hadn't already contacted her in person. She supposed it was possible that with everything that was going on right now, the right hand didn't know what the left hand  was doing--which meant it was probably time to take matters into her own hands.

Or at least introduce herself to the woman in charge, and make sure Murphy knew what sort of resources she had at her disposal. Just in case. She called ahead to the station and left a message, making an appointment like a good professional, and then finally headed over as the hour approached when she had been told Murphy would be in.

2-3 days after the confrontation with Lindsey

Phaedra hadn't been home in a few days. And she'd liked it that way.

She couldn't have predicted that that would happen, but she could tune in mentally, make sure Harry and his were alright. She knew he was fine. And her absence was a needed thing.

When she came home, it felt like coming down from flight. It felt strange to be in this house, now. It felt strange to share a living space with a man who wasn't the one running through her veins. Still, that was her job, and if she was constantly not here, something would come for Harry. Phaedra had no illusions about that. She'd been hired to a point and purpose, and her job would be one that was well done. Nothing would hurt Harry if she could stop it.

She hoped that she had enough energy to protect Lindsey, too.

As she strode up the driveway, she saw someone waiting by the door, and she knew it was someone waiting for her. A quick check told her Harry wasn't here.

The blond woman near the door was Karrin Murphy. She had a badge that said it, but Phaedra knew.

She felt marginally stupid walking up to the house in one of Lindsey's shirts, carrying her leather duster. At least that was the only thing she was parading in front of people. It could be worse.

Phaedra tossed her hair out of her face to the best of her ability and let the corners of her mouth curve into something just this side of a sheepish smile. The sun was still slightly red in the sky, but only just. It was a faded memory.

She knew that Murphy wasn't here for Harry, so she arched an eyebrow and gestured to the front door.

"Come in," she said. The door was unlocked. She went inside.

Against her better judgment, Murphy was waiting in the graveyard after dark with a shovel. She had her badge ready, in case anyone happened by and questioned what they were doing. Of course, that would only buy them some time since she didn't have permission to be out here. And when it was all over with, she would have the badge taken away and most likely be facing jail time.

But hey, it wouldn't be the first time she'd ignored the rules in the interests of solving a case and keeping more people from getting hurt.

Didn't mean that she ever got used to it, or that the part of her that was pure second generation cop ever stopped cringing at the blatant disregard for the laws that she'd sworn to preserve.

All the same, people were dying and she couldn't let that continue.

So she started to dig while she waited on Thomas. Hey, she never had been the type to hang around and wait for the boys to do all the heavy lifting.

Murphy was working on a hell of a migraine. She had taken some excedrin, not that she thought that would help. Still, she took it out of habit.

She was late to meet Thomas. Thomas, who hadn't wanted to meet up before noon because anything else was too early.

She supposed a case was a good enough excuse for being late. But it was more than that. Another murder. This one a blatant murder. With a supernatural murderer playing around in her head. Wanting to be caught.

It wasn't the first time something had broken into her thoughts and played around. And it made her just as pissed off now as it had then.

Which was why she was wearing a scowl when she pulled up at the home of the last victim. He'd died in his living room and she already wasn't looking forward to having to face his widow and explain why she needed to take just one more look at the crime scene.

Jo still wasn't in control of her mind. Her consciousness was buried somewhere deep. Probably not somewhere pleasant, but she also had no idea as to what she'd been up to for the past week or so. This might have been a good thing as her body had been busy gathering up supplies for a ritual to open the gates of hell.

There was blood on her hands, quite literally. For now, it was only animal blood. They had been washed clean, but would still smell to someone with heightened senses.

She had returned to York to make the final preparations. It would be time soon. She wandered the woods on the outskirts of town, near the gates but not directly in their vicinity. Not yet.

The Conduit had given him an incredible gift. Saerian knew that, and he also was not such an idiot as to not realize that it came with a catch.

That little extra, that 'surprise' that he'd been given...

Jack's body was human. It was destined to always be human, and would've been, even with Saerian inside, without the intervention of Wolfram and Hart.

Once he left the White Room, Saerian was pleased to realize his body was reverting back to what he considered to be his natural state, aside from his expansive, non-corporeal shape. He felt his teeth elongating, and he felt Jack's death when it happened, doubling him over and bringing him to his knees. He stayed there as the remainder of the town went berserk, shambling like zombies, wielding chain saws... he was easy to ignore, as a corpse. And once that was all over, he rose, almost invincible.

The playing field was now above level. He was, now, a stronger version of his child: a vampire with some mixture of demon. In his case, the demon would always be stronger. In Phaedra's, it was the opposite.

The first thing he needed to do was show Phaedra he was not done, not by any means.

So he found another victim, this time draining the woman of blood and leaving the puncture wounds before carving the symbol into her wrist. He left her in a heap in a supermarket parking lot and receded into the shadows, waiting to watch, waiting to see what this little bit of bait caught.

The fair was over, thank God. Murphy was glad to be back to normal. Sure, there'd been a little thrill in taking Harry's powers for a test drive, but Harry'd had a lifetime to get used to them and figure out how to use them. Whereas she'd had a brief crash course from Molly and had barely been able to keep herself from shorting out every bit of electronics she passed. Not to mention that nobody had been at their best to help at a time when help had been sorely needed.

Since the fair, she'd sort of steered clear of Harry. The fact that he'd gone into the Tunnel of Love with his housemate was a bit of a sore spot and she was still working through her own feelings on that one. If she was being honest, she'd been working through a whole lot of emotions since Harry had appeared on her doorstep back in Chicago.

It was easier to just stay busy than think about that. Unfortunately, at the moment her leads had dried up and she didn't have anything to focus on. So drinking seemed to be the alternative to sitting at home and stewing over things.

Which was how Murphy came to be sitting on a bar stool on her own, draining her second gin and tonic. And not telling the bartender her life story. God, she hated when people did that. Just because a person went to a bar alone did not mean that they suddenly needed to turn the bartender or whoever was unlucky enough to sit on the barstool next to them into their own personal Dr. Phil.

Dean stood at the edge of the maze, mag light in one hand and a bag full of everything but the kitchen sink on his shoulder. He had two hidden guns, a concealed knife, a jacket pocket full of extra salt rounds, a lighter, accelerant, a vial of holy water...and the Zippo lighter the man in the tent had given him. He wasn't going to think too hard about that one.

He'd been hearing accounts of people seeing Freddy Kruger chasing people around the fair grounds. He'd heard more than one person say that Freddy'd gone after one guy, just one guy. And that description sounded a lot like the demon that went after Jo.

Dean figured there was a good chance the answers about this fair were inside this maze. And he wasn't really looking forward to going in.

"Y'know, Cas," Dean whispered. "Now would be a good time for you to stop sucking so hard." He sighed, and started into the maze. "Yippee kay-ay, motherfuckers."

Could things get any worse for Molly? Well, most probably and has been, but this was getting right up there in the top five moments Molly would really like to not have lived through. And honestly? She wasn't sure what was more irritating: being in Jo's body and Jo being in hers or spending yet another moment in a moving car with Bill. It did accomplish one thing. His ability to annoy her managed to make her forget he was a vampire for a little while.

"You don't have to come in," Molly offered in sarcastic sing song. "I know how intimidated you are by magic in general and wizards in specific so thanks for the ride and bye now!" She started towards Harry's front door, pointedly leaving the Twinkie in the car, and not looking back while having the internal mantra in her head of please don't be following me please don't be following me.

There had been another 'suicide.' This time, it had occurred just after the officer had attended the carnival that was in town, and again had been after weeks of erratic behavior.

Something was very wrong, and Murphy was getting extremely agitated that she couldn't quite put her finger on it. There was a strange substance at each crime scene that she'd identified as sulfur. There had to be something about that, but so far she'd tried contacting the paranet and hadn't gotten many hits back that were all too helpful.

So while she was waiting on a break on the supernatural front, she was currently retracing the victim's steps. Standard detective stuff.

Which was how she found herself walking through the midway, ignoring the carnival barkers and trying to ignore the tempting smell of cotton candy as she looked around for any attractions that the victim might have visited.

This form wasn't her favorite to be wandering in. It was vulnerable, small and sometimes some do-gooder tried to catch her and give her a nice home. But when it came to scouting out a new territory inconspicuously she couldn't do better than as a little black alley cat. The same reasons she didn't prefer this form were the same reasons that made it the best choice for learning her new location.

There were more than a few scents in this town that put her fur on edge. Some made her growl and want to hiss before avoiding the area entirely, while others just made her even more curious. She made a note of the locations she wanted to know more about such as the people who lived there with the plan to come back later, preferably when she didn't have to keep track of where she'd left the dufflebag containing her clothing.

Right now she was padding quietly down a sidewalk near an apartment building. Some local dog picked up her scent and set off barking making her startle before flattening her ears. She couldn't be sure the stupid thing wasn't off the leash so she jumped up onto the nearest vehicle just in case.

Molly hadn’t had a chance to talk to Murphy about things yet. Somehow they kept missing each other. Molly wasn’t sure how that could happen when two people live in one apartment, but apparently it was possible. She’d tried getting up earlier than normal, but nope. She tried staying up late with the same results. If she didn’t know better she’d think Murphy was avoiding her.

Finally Molly decided she would spend an entire twenty four hours in the apartment, awake if need be in an effort to catch Murphy during one of her comings or goings. She’d told Harry she had something she needed to do then holed up on the couch with a stash of five hour energy drinks, some Coke, a coffee and a good book to wait.
( continued in comments )

Takes place after this thread


Karrin still didn't like the idea of leaving Harry after... whatever the hell had happened. She wasn't entirely thrilled at the state Molly was in either, but there was no way she was going to leave Molly alone until she was sure the younger girl was all right. It was very hard to not just pull out her phone and call Michael, or at least Daniel.

Molly needed her family, but Murphy respected the fact that she didn't want to get them involved in this. So instead, Molly was going to just have to settle for the people that considered her family too.

While she might currently be a little bit concerned about Molly's methods, Murphy knew damn well that Molly would do anything for Harry, and that she wanted to help. That was good enough for her.

She parked the car outside her apartment building and got out, heading over to Molly's side of the car. Once she'd opened the door, she stretched out her hand for Molly's.

"Come on, Molly. Let's get you cleaned up," she said gently.

“It was down this road.” Molly had pretty much led Harry by the hand approaching Trout Run Road, but once they started getting closer to it she became less eager she became until she was almost behind him. “I could feel it. Like a trail of darkness that got thicker the longer you walked.” She looked up at Harry curious to see if he felt it too. “I was going to follow it all the way down until I ran into para-military guy blowing demon heads up in the middle of the road. Riley. I told you about him.”

Harry knew this road. The Gates themselves weren't hidden, but out of the way. Unlike most urban legend-type places, there was no gift shop, no guided tours. This was real, and it was old. People didn't like to be at places like this. Deep in their subconscious, they knew something had tainted the earth, the trees, the very air.


"You felt the Gates," Harry said, nodding. "I can't sense it the same way. It just feels... like the air is a bit slimy, muddy ground even though I can feel it's dry and solid." A trail now, that was something interesting. But Molly's senses for magic had always been more delicate than his. Much more delicate.

( Will continue in comments )

Chip fried, Spike felt pretty good about his un-life, suddenly. Maybe this soul thing wouldn't be that bad.

He snorted, even thinking it.

It'd only been a few hours ago that Harry'd zapped his noggin. He was heading home-- he didn't have a ton of money, but that wouldn't stop him from taking over a crypt and making it homey, like he did in Sunnydale-- and needed to stop for a new pack of cigarettes. Harry'd nicked a few, and Spike was all out. He didn't fancy trying to get through the entire upcoming day on zero nicotine.

He ducked into a supermarket between The Darkside of the Moon and the cemetery on the edge of the town line. It was unnaturally bright in here, and white and shiny. It kind of hurt. It kind of had a glare. It was clean though, full of food. Spike made a note to stop in here for some spices once he had more cash. Give the blood more kick. Tabasco, things like that.

The place was pretty empty, save the checkout clerks (two) and a woman he knew was there but couldn't see. He could smell her. Nothing funny, at all. But she was there, and she smelled nice. Nicer than the two teenage kids, that's for sure.

He'd have to find customer service. That's where they gave you your rolls of quarters and whatnot. And lottery tickets. And cigarettes.

Right.

He went on his way, peering down aisles for the desk.

York was a strange experience, to say the least. Murphy didn’t quite know what to make of being able to walk to most places from her motel. It was tiny, and everyone seemed to know everyone. This was almost Stepford creepy to her. She was not keen to stick around long enough to have the townspeople learn her life story, but if things were as bad as they seemed, she might have to.

Or the world would come to an end, which was possibly more cheerful than ending up a local.

No, Murphy knew full well that Harry wouldn’t let the world come to an end. And there was no way in hell she would let that happen without putting up a damn good fight for that matter. So, staying in York it was. She had already located an apartment that offered a month to month lease. It seemed that newcomers to the town never stayed long. For that matter, she had a feeling that some of the locals were trying to get out too.

She walked back to her room at the Phoenix, glad that she would be out of the place soon. She had personally checked to make sure that the new apartment had steaming hot water instead of just a spluttering shower with lukewarm water.

( Fancy Meeting You Here )